What's the world?

Today the Department of Unexpected Interspecies Friendship is sighing happily while looking at these awesomely adorable photos of a pair of BFFs who happen to be a Little Owl named Napoleon, aka Poldi, and a Belgian Malinois named Ingo. These fast friends live with Tanja Brandt, a professional animal photographer and collage artist based in Dusseldorf, Germany, who photographs the unusual pair while they’re all outside enjoying the fresh air together. Napoleon is the runt of a brood of 7 little owls hatched by a professional breeder. Ingo often assists Brandt while she photographs other birds, including her Harris’s Hawks, which easily dwarf little Poldi.

"I go outside with them together — Napoleon on my hand, Ingo is free running. I do the same with my big Harris Hawks, but they are also free and can fly. Not so with Napoleon. It’s too dangerous. Every cat would kill him, he don’t know hows [sic] to live free. And so, this is why they trust each other. They respect each other and they can read each other. Ingo knows every reactions from the wild birds and if they are angry, he goes another way […] with the wild birds, he is very soft (not with other dogs or something else).”

Click here to learn more about Poldi and Ingo. For more photos of them, as well as photos of Brandt’s other avian friends, visit Tanja Brandt’s 500px page.